Read Online Blind-Date Baby by Fiona Harper - Free Book Online Page A

I was in Paris too,’ she whispered to herself, just for a moment forgetting the hunk of charm and cool sitting next to her.
    ‘Well, that’s an answer. Grace wants to travel.’
    ‘Huh?’ She looked up to find he had leaned in a little closer. What was he doing? Compiling a list?
    ‘Now your nest is empty, you want to see the world?’
    She nodded. ‘That would be lovely, but I have to be content to just do it in my dreams. I’m…er…not really in a position to just jet off to some far-flung place on a whim.’
    She took in the cut of Noah’s coat, his effortless style. Everything about him screamed money. He obviously didn’t have to worry about university fees or saving for his own little shop one day.
    ‘This cake is fabulous,’ he said before finishing the last mouthful.
    There wasn’t a smudge of chocolate on him. Not even a crumb had dared to land on his charcoal pullover. Grace licked a spot of stickiness off her fingers, then wiped them on her jeans.
    ‘Who’s your supplier?’
    For a moment, Grace couldn’t work out what he wasasking. Then she blushed. The way she’d blushed at fourteen years old when she’d walked past The Coffee Bean and Rob had winked at her. The heat started in her neck and just kept on climbing.
    ‘I am. I mean…I made it.’
    For the first time since she’d met him—less than twenty-four hours ago, but it seemed a lot longer—Noah looked something other than cool. ‘You did?’
    She nodded, blushing hard enough now to match the icing on the finger buns in the display case.
    ‘You have a real talent. Where did you learn to bake like this?’
    Coming from Noah, a man who seemed to be a connoisseur of virtually everything, that meant something.
    ‘I was at the end of a catering course at Westminster College when I had Daisy,’ she said, looking at the crumbs on Noah’s plate and wondering if you could read the patterns in the same way that gypsies read tea leaves. ‘I had an idea I’d like to become a pastry chef.’
    But long hours, early starts, the sheer hard graft that went along with working in a professional kitchen, had not been compatible with motherhood—especially single motherhood.
    After Rob had died she’d been desperate. Twenty-year-old newlyweds didn’t think about saving and life insurance. The army pension helped, but it had still been a struggle. Thank goodness Caz had come to her rescue. It had seemed like an answer to prayer. Not only had she had a roof over her head and a job, but a whole host of coffee shop employees virtually fighting each other to babysit Daisy. And she’d been able to bake. Okay, she hadn’t finished her course, but she’d borrowed books from the library and even done a few adult education classes. At least working in The Coffee Bean had allowed her to indulge in her passion.
    She bit into her pain au chocolat. The dark sweetness soothed her, as always.
    ‘One day, I’m going to open my own patisserie,’ she said quietly. She didn’t know when or how, she just knew she would do it. But, instead of getting closer to her goal, her dream seemed to be disappearing into the distance like the retreating tide on the river Thames. And once the tide was gone, all that was left was mud. With every step, in every direction, she found herself stuck, held fast by the dark, sticky circumstances of life.
    She looked up to find Noah regarding her, his grey-green eyes strangely intense. Suddenly, she realised there was another bullet point to add to the list of things she didn’t want.
    She didn’t want to sit here feeling so comfortable in his presence that she drifted off, let her guard down, spilled her secrets at his feet.
    ‘I have to go.’ She stood up and jammed her hands into her jeans pockets. ‘And I meant what I said, Noah. The flowers are lovely but—’
    He reached up and tugged one hand out of her pocket. Just the feel of those long fingers wrapped around hers stole the words right out of her mouth. He tugged